


A Fish For Your Thoughts

by sonotfine



Series: Steward and Lionheart [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Kinda..., a shared meal between cattes, friendship fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 18:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21450487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonotfine/pseuds/sonotfine
Summary: A quiet evening in the Crystarium, some salmon meunière, a happy nameday wish for the Crystal Exarch, and despite the sauce on the salmon the heaviest shit in this whole meal is the feelings.G’raha getting told he’s loved and appreciated by his inspiration, as he deserved to be.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch & Original Character(s), G’raha Tia | Crystal Exarch & m!WOL
Series: Steward and Lionheart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546348
Kudos: 23





	A Fish For Your Thoughts

The Crystal Exarch stared at the dish in front of him in shock. Then he lifted his eyes to Mordred, who was seated across the bar from him with his chin in his hand, watching him.

Then he looked at the plate again.

It was a hearty home-cooked meal of salmon meunière, though where Mordred managed to find salmon, the Exarch had no idea. Did he bother Feo Ul into carrying a whole damn salmon from the Source to make this? Because the fish was extinct in the First. And the aroma was digging up some long-buried memories in the Exarch that he wasn’t sure if he...wanted...to be uncovered.

“Happy nameday,” Mordred said. His large, soft ears twitched, wiggling. Then he grinned. “Hundred an’ something, right, old man? But I hope you still like salmon meunière. You used to bully me whenever we passed through the Shroud to have this.”

“Did I?” the Exarch asked blankly, then cleared his throat. Yes, actually, he did vaguely remember that. Twelve, how long had it been? “Oh, yes. Youngsters seemed to always have bottomless stomachs.“

A pause, the Exarch suddenly finding himself reminiscing those simple, bright days under the Shroud’s protective boughs in-between researches into the Crystal Tower, where he would cling onto Mordred for whatever tiny adventures he would have in the name of profit and glory. It startled him, the intensity of how much he missed it, of homesickness, of long months he had...he had long allowed to fade from his memory.

“Try it,” Mordred urged, voice low and gentle. As gentle as he could, anyway, which was admittedly not much. “It’s okay if you like, cry or whatnot once you’ve tasted it. I didn’t go all-in on the seasoning, so.”

The cheeky words rattled some semblance of control back into the Exarch, at least. He snorted loudly and picked up the fork, but not before poking Mordred in the arm with it first. “Even when you’re sweet, you’re sour,” he said.

“I’m tryin’ here, mate,” Mordred said indignantly, then chuckled.

The Exarch chuckled, too, and then stabbed his fork into the meunière, flicked off a piece, and put it into his mouth.

He chewed slowly, savoring the taste...

And then reached for the salt shaker on the side.

“So I did under-season it,” Mordred said, sounding wholly disappointed. “Figured old people have weaker palates but guess I was wrong...”

“Stop calling me old,” the Exarch groused, though not seriously. He pointedly shook a generous amount of the salt on top of the salmon before setting the shaker aside. “Me calling myself old is one thing, and quite another when you do it. Young brat.”

“World of Darkness did age me by one hundred years so in terms of how godsawfully tired we are, you an’ me are the same,” Mordred replied. He didn’t sound like he was joking.

The Exarch winced, remembering that particular trip. It had felt like a nightmare, honestly, which he supposed it was.

Doubly so for Mordred, who he still remembered screamed and shouted and jumped up and down (rather comically, given he was one foot tall at the time) during their encounter with Cerberus.

Mordred rubbed at his forehead and stared deeply at the wooden counter, eyebrows pinched. 

No, he wasn’t joking.

The Exarch took two more bites of the salmon, which was now tasting much, much better, before he reached across the counter and tentatively touched Mordred’s arm.

The esteemed Warrior of Light made a very feline “mmrp” noise before he blinked up at him, shaking himself back into the present.

“Thank you,” the Exarch said warmly. “For...remembering this of me.”

”You’re welcome. You probably didn’t tell them your birthday or nothin’, right.” Mordred pushed himself off the counter and looked at him; he didn’t phrase it like a question.

The Exarch smiled wryly. It was true. “I saw no point in it. Nor did I have reason to believe that the First even shared the same calendar system as the Source — which, by the way, it did not. We agreed on the Voeburite calendar because it was regional and made the most sense, and... Like I said, there is no point in it.”

Things were so bleak, so frantic and fearful for so many years, namedays were not a thing either. This, the Exarch did not say.

Instead he lifted his eyes to look at the Crystarium around them. At the peaceful silence of falling dusk, at the stars and the full moon above, the lazy clouds curling like wisps of smoke on the endless night sky.

They had won. It had been a month and the Exarch could hardly believe it. They had won. And...and he was still here, sitting here, sharing this meal with Mordred. His friend. The Warrior of Light. The one who remembered him, after all this—

He quickly put the fork down and pressed his fingers firmly to his eyes, willing the wetness to go away.

“I missed you for a very long time,” Mordred said softly, his words gentle as they were heavy with sincerity. “I thought— I wanted, so swiving badly, to pry you out of that tower. To...To convince you that you didn’t need to sleep and wait for the world to be better but rather to build it with me. I ended up going to so many places, so far from Eorzea. I knew you would’ve loved to see them. The Ruby Sea. Yanxia. I went back to Doma.”

“That’s good,” the Exarch gasped, cursing himself that he couldn’t. stop. Crying. “You...You went home. I’ve read about it.”

He did. He read it from Mordred’s own letters, actually, addressed to a man named Kozou Kazema who the Exarch had deciphered was his adoptive father or something close to it. Letters never sent, unearthed after a grieving Cid Garlond went through the Warrior of Light’s belongings. After he died. 

He wondered where that man had gone, in the future he had abandoned for this course. Whether he lived long enough to hear that his son was dead. Mordred, scrappy and fierce and invincible, snuffed out like a candle in the winds in the end. Some miracles were beyond even gods.

Sitting here, his mouth tasting like salmon and the breezes rustling his clothes, his hair, Mordred alive and well inches from him, the Exarch (G’raha) could almost convince himself that it had all been a bad dream.

Maybe it was. And he too was a component of it, not a dreamer. A ghost.

...But he felt warm, calloused fingers close around his wrists and they were as real as the bite of the winds and everything else, every ounce of the crushing weight he had borne for a century. G’raha inhaled, exhaled shakily, and let Mordred pull him forward into a hug.

He hugged the same as back then, when G’raha Tia was still only a traveling Student of Baldesion, not yet burdened by legacy and fate. Kind of awkward, but fierce and tight, and very warm. And he rubbed his head with the Exarch’s, and purred.

“I don’t say this enough,” Mordred said. “But I’ll try, ‘cos it matters and you deserve to hear it: thank you, G’raha. Thank you, for everything you did for me and for the people of the First, and for the future you refused to give up on. Because I know it must’ve been fucking bleak some days.”

“But you would have gotten up,” G’raha said quietly, closing his eyes and burying his face into Mordred’s shoulder. “In fact, you did. You... Even when it felt like there was no hope left, and the odds seemed insurmountable.”

He still had the records of Mordred’s exploits, some from Count Edmont’s writing, some from reports, some from Mordred’s own correspondences and diary entries, sitting in a cherished place in his study. He still read them again and again on the worst days, until Mordred was here and was unrepentantly himself about...well, everything.

“You being here is much better than the books,” G’raha said. “I wish I could—“

Could be the G’raha of your time, he wanted to say, because he knew the G’raha Tia Mordred loved still slept in the Crystal Tower on the Source, ignorant to all of this. He would probably never wake within Mordred’s lifetime, but...he existed. And then there was him, the Crystal Exarch. He felt false somehow, a reflection, now, too, of—

Mordred let him go and frowned at him, his mouth thinning in the way it usually did when the Crystal Exarch was saying or implying something self-deprecating and Mordred wasn’t in the mood to hear it.

But the Exarch was not in the mood for a scolding, so he preempted it with: “I miss you, too. More than I can... More than I could have imagined. You were one of my first friends.”

“Krile gonna take offense to that,” Mordred said wryly and let him go. He picked up a clean fork sitting on the side and scooped up a big chunk of the salmon meunière and stuffed it into his mouth. 

“I said one of, not ‘the’,” the Exarch replied primly, wiping at his eye and glad that the fit of emotions had passed. Blighted Light but he was glad they were alone here right now. “She was one of my oldest friends, indeed. And I’m glad to hear that she’s doing well.”

“Is Krile everybody’s friends?” Mordred asked with genuine curiosity. “She’s tutored Alphi, she calls you Raha...”

“More or less,” the Exarch admitted. Then he added dryly when Mordred scooped up another forkful of the salmon, “I thought that was my nameday present.”

“‘m hungry too,” Mordred mumbled under his breath, but put the fork down. He squinted his eyes shut, ears wiggling, and made a low happy noise in his throat. “‘s good to have you back, G’raha. If you’re okay with me calling you that. I know it’s been awhile, an’ things’ve been a swiving mess.”

“I...” the Exarch’s mouth felt dry. But he swallowed and nodded, reaching for the mug of water sitting nearby. “If you want to...I’m alright with you calling me that. Since that is what I am to you, after all.”

G’raha Tia. The cheeky Student of Baldesion who Mordred called ‘little man’ to his face even though they were the same height. The traveling scholar ever so eager to get into big trouble. The Allag enthusiast.

That young man was long gone. But the Exarch felt his revival, his memories simply sitting here next to Mordred. To be looked at with such fondness and familiarity. So much that he wanted to be him—

“Crystal Exarch or G’raha, you’re my friend,” Mordred said. “And someone I admire very much. Even if you’re vexing sometimes but I think that’s pot calling the kettle black.”

Warmth lodged in the Exarch’s chest and spread, so pleasant yet so utterly consuming.

“Then—“ He cleated his throat, pressing a hand to his mouth to hide the grin because _he admired me, he admired me._ “Then I am either or both, as you wish.”

**Author's Note:**

> 2am shot through the heart with G’raha related feelings.
> 
> And here’s visual reference for Mordred (Meowdred) for the curious: https://meowww-ffxiv.tumblr.com/post/186203872390/when-you-stood-001-inch-away-from-certain-pillar


End file.
